It's neither extreme. There were slaves in the North who did build infrastructure and the wealth from cotton and tobacco was also instrumental in the early growth of the US. USA just resisted the colonial powers and stopped exporting raw materials just so it could import the manufactured goods and did the manufacturing itself.

If you've read Adam Smith you might understand that the corn (or equiv) is important and the people who grow and harvest it are part of that whether they are internal slaves, serf/peasants, or if the colonial power is exploiting slaves abroad and importing the raw materials.

Brazil suffered from extreme Capitalism and lack of planning. In the 19th Century, following the market, it became largely a one-trick pony, that trick being coffee. In the US, Alexander Hamilton was wise and used protections to make sure that US industry developed despite the fact that English manufacturing was more efficient at the time.

American capitalists hijacked the term. Ayn Rand hated American so-called libertarians and this was partially why.

My friend's mom (a Brazilian who lives in Brazil) would just say it's because of the Brazilian people. (Who are of course the best people).

I think this Harvard economist does a good job breaking down what leads to stronger economic growth. He said the reason the US is richer than other countries is because Americans are:

in general are hard working
unions aren’t that strong compared to many other developed countries/there isn’t a large amount of regulations in labor
a growing population
a tax system that rewards hard work more than others
good energy sources
a relatively small government

He also gave credit to world class universities. I would argue that universities didn’t play that large of a roll in the US’ wealth, but he works for one so I understand he’s biased opinion. He also left out strong property rights - without strong property rights nothing else matters.

https://hbr.org/2017/04/why-the-u-s-...-large-country

Applying this logic to todays politicians it is no wonder why economist believe repubs value growing the size of the pie while dems value cutting up the pie more to their liking.

yes ok that explains things ex post quite reasonably, question though is "how can i easily claim that slavery was absolutely not only non essential, but actual detrimental to american gdp per capita growth, and that the civil war being won by the industrialized, anti-slavery part of society was one of the key reasons why the USA became as succesful as it did?

so i took brazil as counterfactual, at least for the part about "no, having slavery from the 17th to the 19th century clearly isn't what made the USA extremely succesful"

There are people like jalfrezi still going around with debunked (by economic historians) claims about slavery being a reason of america success while we actually know if anything it was the opposite, it's abolition, that propelled USA to #1

Can barely believe that Ronald Reagan's chief economic advisor would attribute US growth to right wing policies.

famous right wing policies like women labor force participation increase and immigration

I find it hard to believe there are many, if any, economists whose income doesn't come from the government that would debate much of anything in that article.

I think it would be just as easy to find a scientist who denies the existence of gravity than an economist (who isn't paid by a government) who denies incentives matter that unions, a big govt and a lot of regulation are a drag on economic growth and a growing population and natural resources are good for growth.

(West) Germany seems to have done pretty well.

W Germany is a nice example of how private sector unions aren't necessarily a disaster for the economy , true, but if you want to use it to prove that (which you can), check the debt to gdp it mantained as well, can't pick and choose right?

Check the US debt in that case.

jalfrezi, can you explain why you brought up west germany?

Unions have seats on the board of larger companies; regulation.

west germany private sector unions , specifically in manufacturing (their "united auto workers" equivalent) is close to miracolous, a stoic group of people who actually much more often than not, are aligned with corporate sectoral interests and spend more political capital trying to make and keep their sector relevant in society and the economy.

Just as an example, in the aftermath of the GFC when the sector was in serious difficulties, they self-reduced hours to avoid firing members, they didn't try to squeeze owners.

what makes you think the regulatory state was more invasive in west germany in 1975 than in the USA?

Unions or just workers. For companies with over 2000 people, Germany is 49% worker cooperative - as far as governance goes.

You've lost the thread of the debate you started yourself.

You said unions, a big govt and a lot of regulation are a drag on economic growth. Now you're saying what? That pre-Reagan USA had as much regulation as West Germany? Both were doing pretty well growth-wise under Keynesian economics.

No I didn't make that list bahbah did.

I am agreeing with you re private sector unions not being necessarily a drag to the economy.

What I am trying to tell you wrt regulations, is that they were exceptionally lower 40 years ago both in Germany and in the USA. Like literally they multiplied rules by an order of magnitude since then

Environmental regulations alone went completely banana lately to the point of millions of pages of rules that didn't exist 40-50 years ago

I'm not sure how you are coming to the conclusion that west germany growing is somehow proving that unions aren't a drag on economic growth. I never claimed that having unions automatically means there will be no economic growth.

There are an insane amount of variables that goes into economic growth and I (and the harvard bro) was just mentioning some of the bigger variables. I think you would be hard pressed to find a non-govt paid economists who would say things like heavy regulation, unions, laws that are less likely to encourage hard work and a big govt aren't a drag on economic growth.

Dems who support these things know they are a drag on the economy because they think the supposed short term boost to the poor and middle class is more important than worrying about the future of the poor and middle class. It would be interesting to get some of the dems who support these things off the record to ask if they would admit that if repubs had more power for the last 100 years that the poor and middle class would be better off today - I suspect many of them would agree that dems of yesterday are bad for the poor of tomorrow.